Earlier this year, when the Idaho state legislature was considering an unconstitutional bill to nullify the Affordable Care Act, the state’s attorney general issued a stark warning against turning that bill into law. If Idaho passed a law refusing to comply with the Medicaid provisions of the ACA, it could opt itself out of Medicaid:

An additional legal ramification that must be considered as RS 20315 is contemplated is its effect on existing and future Idaho participation in the Medicaid Program. As a purely voluntary program, Idaho’s refusal to comply with the expanded provisions within the PPACA could potentially result in Idaho exiting the program and losing the existent federal matching funds. This could create a situation where individuals presently covered would no longer be covered, yet still require medical treatment, which likely would be required to be provided for and paid for through some non-federal means. This situation, in turn, could create an intense burden on the State’s budget.

Medicaid is an entirely voluntary program in which the federal government provides generous grants to the states to administer a health program for their low-income residents. Yet Otter’s executive order forbids state agencies from implementing “any provisions” of the ACA, and it provides that “[n]o executive branch department, agency, institution or employee of the State shall accept or expend federal funds to implement the provisions of the []ACA.”

The reason why this is problematic is because, starting in 2014, the ACA requires states participating in the Medicaid program to offer health coverage to all persons under the age of 65 who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty rate. In return for expanding Medicaid, the federal government will provide each state with the lion’s share of the funds required to do so.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan is probably the one man in New York who can seriously derail marriage equality in that state. The man who longs to be Pope and convince the world that his beliefs are the only ones that are right has a flat out hatred of homosexuals, and a clear devotion to the protection of the Catholic Church when it comes to all matters regarding child sexual abuse. As Archbishop of Wisconsin, he oversaw the attempts to keep any and all information regarding the sexual abuse of deaf children at a Catholic run school from reaching the media. He has been upset over the coverage of the child sex abuse case in Philadelphia.

And now he is the target of Queer Rising.

On Sunday, 24 April 2011, Queer Rising is planning on protesting the Catholic Church’s instance in getting involved in American domestic politics.

Transsexual woman called attack ‘hate crime,’ has been afraid to be seen in public

A transsexual woman brutally beaten at a Baltimore CountyMcDonald’s spoke out on Saturday, saying that the attack was “definitely a hate crime” and that she’s been afraid to leave the house ever since.

“They said, ‘That’s a dude, that’s a dude and she’s in the female bathroom,'” said Chrissy Lee Polis, who’s 22 and says she stopped at the Rosedale restaurant to use the restroom. “They spit in my face.”

A worker at the restaurant taped Monday’s attack and created a graphic video that eventually went viral on Friday. After the video garnered hundreds of thousands of views on websites, McDonald’s issued a statement condemning the incident and on Saturday, fired the worker that taped it.

The video shows two women — one of them a 14-year-old girl — repeatedly kicking and punching Polis in the head as an employee and a patron try to intervene. Others can be heard laughing, and men are seen standing idly by.

Toward the end of the video, one of the suspects lands a punishing blow to the victim’s head, and Polis appears to have a seizure. A man’s voice tells the women to run because police are coming.

<snip>

It’s not the first time, Polis said, that she’s been picked on — physically — because of her sexual preferences. She said she’s been subjected to beatings and even sexual assaults.

She says seeing herself all over the Internet and all over the news has been “like walking out of the closet all over again.” Polis, who says she had a sex change operation to become a woman, is concerned that the public attention this has brought her could trigger more violence — and worries it could hurt her chances of getting a job. “I want to cry but I need to hold my head up,” she said.

Note – This is a repost of a February piece I wrote regarding Maggie Gallagher and NOM. I am presenting it again because it needed to be updated and also we need to be reminded of Gallagher and NOM’s duplicity.

These days, it’s relatively easy to be a talking head on news programs.

Just find some sucker with a lot of money willing to fund you, created an organization with an important sounding name, give yourself an important sounding but meaningless title (senior fellow, research analyst, president, etc.), and they’ll practically be beating at your door.

An incident recently on Fox News more than demonstrates that point. Not long after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama Administration would no longer defend DOMA, Fox News personality (you really don’t think I’m going to call her a journalist, do you) Megyn Kelly had National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher on her show to whine about how evil this decision is for families.

Of course Gallagher’s definition of families never seems to include lgbt families, leaving a lot of people out.

Nevertheless, Kelly allowed Gallagher to push her usual silly talking points, including one about how gays are inaccurately being compared to black people in terms of civil rights.

I sincerely hope that in discussing the DOMA decision – and hopefully this piece – no one falls for the divide and conquer technique of this person – Gallagher – who cares as much about the black community as she does the lgbt community.

And that level of care is zero.

What Gallagher and Kelly did were evasive tactics, much like other tactics Gallagher seems to have mastered when talking about gay marriage. Give her five minutes and she will try to pivot the conversation from the same-sex households negatively affected by her activism to how she and others like her are supposedly unfairly called “bigots” for supposedly simply trying to “protect marriage.”

Okay, let go on that angle. Let’s break down the acts of Gallagher and NOM and pose the question – are these the acts of a bigoted, homophobic organization or people simply trying to “defend marriage:”

November 20, 2009 – Signer of Manhattan Declaration wanted to jail gays and lesbians – By signing an anti-gay document, The Manhattan Declaration, Gallagher and NOM affiliates themselves with folks who want to jail lgbts.

February 1, 2010 – Maggie Gallagher commits ‘sin of omission’ to make case against marriage equality – Gallagher cites a study to bash gay marriage and gay parenting, even though the study had nothing to do with either concept.

March 8, 2010 – TinyU-R-Gay: @NOMupdates limits gay lives to less than 140 characters/years – A NOM tweet actually pushing the lie that gays have a short life span.

June 14, 2010 – National Organization for Marriage: Gays Were Never Hunted Down and Murdered Like ‘Jews, Christians, and Blacks’ – NOM is found to be affiliated with Louis J. Marinelli during its failed summer for marriage tour. Amongst other things, Marinelli claims that gays want to molest children. When Marinelli’s words became public, NOM claimed that the organization had no affiliation with Marinelli. However certain links posted as an update to the story demonstrated that NOM did have an affiliation with Marinelli. Editor’s note – earlier this month, Marinelli disavowed his work with NOM as well as many of the things he said in the past about lgbt. He is now a supporter of marriage equality.

June 28, 2010 – Message to Maggie Gallagher: associating with bigots does make you a bigot – NOM associates itself with another bigoted group, The Traditional Value Coalition. Amongst other things, TVC head Lou Sheldon has said that gays should be referred to as “sodomites.”

July 27, 2010 – National Organization for Marriage needs to disavow its ‘zany’ followers – NOM not only has a problem with the homophobia of those in its ranks, but also those who support the group, particularly the guy with the poster of the hangman’s nooses.

February 11, 2011 – PolitiFact catches anti-gay group NOM in a huge lie about gay marriage and children – Pultizer Prize-winning news site calls NOM out on a lie that gay marriage is being taught to kindergartners in Massachusetts.

February 17, 2011 – National Organization for Marriage called out AGAIN for distortive tactics – NOM commissions a misleading poll claiming that the majority of folks in Maryland oppose gay marriage. They are called out on it by a local columnist.

February 22, 2011 – National Organization for Marriage makes the case for being an anti-gay hate group – NOM pushes a piece written by syndicated columnist Mike McManus of the group Marriage Savers. The column has several distortions about gays, including the lie that gay men have a shorter life span than heterosexuals. NOM has not distanced itself from this piece.

April 15, 2011 – Maggie Gallagher shucks and jives her way through the DOMA hearing – During a Congressional hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Gallagher says that gays and lesbians make wonderful parents and she does not understand how her past statements can be construed a “condemnation” of gays and lesbians and their “parenting skills.” However, Equality Matters (and myself) lists statements Gallagher has made in the past which were not so complimentary to the lgbt community

Again, I ask does this sound like a Christian defender of “the family” or a homophobic bigot exploiting fear and ignorance for a paycheck?

Posted in Uncategorized. Comments Off on Eleven examples of NOM’s bigotry